


pluperfect

by PANTAL00NS



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Cheating, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, POV Second Person, Unreliable Narrator, no happy endings here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PANTAL00NS/pseuds/PANTAL00NS
Summary: A type of verb form, deriving fromplus quam perfectum, meaning "more than perfect", and used to refer to an action that had already been completed at a point of time in the past.
Relationships: Marina & Pearl (Splatoon), Marina/Pearl (Splatoon)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	pluperfect

This does not have a happy ending.  
  
That is a lie.  
  
There is a happy ending. At least, you think there might be. It is not something you can see, or touch, or taste. It isn’t even for _you_. Your ending, at least the ending you claimed for yourself, has already been set. And here you are, thinking back on it. Wondering, perhaps, of what could have been done differently. Maybe even if the outcome might have been something that wouldn’t rip your hearts asunder.  
  
Though you know the futility of dwelling on the impossible. Even your daydreams aren’t pleasant, if only because a daydream must end, and you’re keenly aware of it. The thought cannot even become savory and pleasant, merely ripen with the bitter truth that soon you will stop lingering in that mental space and be drawn back to the painful reality.  
  
The simple truth is that your world came to an end, neither with bang nor boom, but a whisper. A promise.  
  
A kiss.  
  
It shouldn’t hurt so much. Oh, certainly, it stung the day it happened, when your world came crashing down around your ears in a cacophony of static-loud silence. But it’s been years, now. Or has it been merely weeks? It’s hard to tell, sometimes. Hours and days will blur by. 3am will follow after 10pm with no regard for the interim if you aren’t careful. A blinking digital display will flash once in the dark and then, before your very eyes, you’ll find your room bathed in the blue hues of early morning light.  
  
You keep moving on, of course. That’s what life is, really. One footstep in front of the other. Another morning. One more disappointment after the last. No matter how many times your alarm clicks over to signal a new day, your bed is still cold and empty, and your hearts still feel like stone in your breast. Sometimes you can even ignore it. Like a bruise, there yes, but little more than an afterthought until you strike it unthinkingly against some surface and feel the pain lace through your skin to the extremities.  
  
Some might call it pining. You don’t, but then you don’t have a name for it at all. Fleeting thoughts of fancy? A reminder that comes back every now and then, to dredge up those painful memories and reaffirm that it happened? You don’t try to think of it, or her. Not really.  
  
But…  
  
But here you are. Torn between that lucid dream of maybe and maybe not, sitting at the metaphorical edge of eternity with nothing but your own rebellious brain for company.  
  
And you remember.  
  
As much as you don’t want to, you _remember_. And that’s what really hurts the most, isn’t it? That after all this time, she won’t leave you. She won’t let you forget. Not even the taste of champagne on your tongue, or how the brilliant lights of the gaudy chandeliers had hurt your eyes, or the bass as it pounded in your ears and your hearts jumped in time to the music.  
  
A celebration. Glasses clinking. Speeches made. The marble floors polished so well that you could see your reflection. People blurring past. Words said. Promises. The weight of a ring in your pocket, carrying with it the hours of painstaking detail you spent to make sure it was perfect. And oh it was going to be. It could not be anything else. Not with how much you planned it. From your first meeting on a lonely mountain to the now of living that second in harmony, everything had lead up to this one act.  
  
She kissed her.  
  
It was supposed you be you and her. Her and you. Just as you’d always promised between the lines of a song. A whispered stanza sung as one. Two hands clasped together. A touch of lips. A shared lifetime of intimacy. You had laid your soul bare to her, and she in turn to you. You had no secrets. Only one desire – to love her for the rest of your life. To be loved by her. To share every second of your eternity with her.  
  
_And she kissed her_.  
  
Did she call back when you turned and left? When the world stopped crashing all around you, did she call your name with regret? Did she even notice that you had gone? Did she feel the same pain of her hearts ripping asunder? Did she know that you had seen?  
  
Did she even care that she had destroyed everything with just that one act?  
  
You don’t know.  
  
That’s, possibly, the worst part. _You don’t know_. Because when all was said and done, you are nothing more than a coward. You left. You ripped yourself out of her life. You threw your phone away. You logged out of your e-mail and never checked it again. You walked out that door and out of your shared life. You never gave her the chance to talk, to explain, to utter an excuse.  
  
You justified it.  
  
The ring had been so cold in your hands, and you threw as hard as you could to the cold night air. The last you knew of it was just the _tink!_ as it collided with the asphalt and rolled, unwanted, out of your life. Sometimes you entertain the thought of her finding it, of seeing her name engraved on the inner band, knowing it had been laboriously made just for her finger, of knowing what she had done and and --  
  
And what?  
  
Come running back? Apologize? Swear it wouldn’t happen again?  
  
You didn’t give her that chance when it happened. You didn’t give her the opportunity in the days-months-years that followed. You _left_. You didn’t even go back to your shared home. You left her with nothing more than the evidences that you had once been there. Your things. Your music.  
  
Your voice, recorded in a studio, singing to hers in a song that you’d never play again.  
  
You left. You’re gone and out of her life.  
  
It’s over.  
  
You’re never going back.  
  
It’s over.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Then why do you refuse to let it go?


End file.
